Generally speaking, children's bicycles are immensely popular with children and parents alike. Learning to ride a bicycle provides the children with a great sense of achievement and often their first taste of independence from their parents. The parents will in turn derive great joy from the happiness of their offspring caused by this sense of achievement and independence. Furthermore, the parents will derive satisfaction from the knowledge that their child is partaking in a healthy activity.
Heretofore, one of the most common methods of teaching a child to ride a bicycle was to fit the bicycle with stabilisers that prevent the bicycle from falling over to one side or the other. The stabilisers allow the child to learn and get comfortable with the riding fundamentals of steering, braking and pedalling before tackling the skill of balancing on only two wheels. In many ways, the stabilisers offered a logical transition to a bicycle from a tricycle. One of the main advantages of using stabilisers was that once the child had mastered the skills of steering, braking and pedalling and was sufficiently confident to learn how to balance on two wheels, the stabilisers could be removed from the bicycle with relative ease and an entirely new bicycle without stabilisers did not have to be purchased.
Another method of teaching a child to ride a bicycle that has been growing in popularity in recent times is to provide a so-called balance bicycle to the child. A balance bicycle is similar to a normal bicycle but without a drivetrain including pedals. Instead of pedalling, the child effectively pushes the bicycle along using their feet pushing against the ground. Stabilisers are not provided on the balance bicycle and therefore instead of learning the skills of steering, braking and pedalling initially and subsequently learning the skill of balancing, the child learns the skills of steering, braking and balancing initially and when they are sufficiently comfortable with those skills, they are ready to graduate to a bicycle with pedals on which they can learn the additional skill of pedalling. Many experts believe that the balance bicycle methodology is more effective for children learning to ride a bicycle than the stabiliser methodology.
There are however problems with the known bicycles for children. In relation to balance bicycles, a major shortcoming of these bicycles is that once the child has learnt the skills of balancing, steering and braking, an entirely new bicycle with pedals must be purchased in order to allow the child progress to the next stage. Obviously, this is expensive and undesirable. It is not uncommon for a child to quickly master the balance bicycle and be ready to progress to a pedal bicycle resulting in a balance bicycle that is only used for a relatively short period of time and therefore appears to offer poor value for money. These are significant barriers to implementing what many experts believe to be the easier way to teach children how to ride a bicycle.
In relation to both balance bicycles and pedal bicycles for children, when learning to ride a bicycle, the children are at a developmental stage of typically rapid growth and they often outgrow the bicycle in a relatively short period of time. The bicycles often cater for a limited degree of adjustment by allowing one or both of the saddle and the handlebars to be height-adjustable to suit the height of the child. As the child grows, the height of the saddle and the handlebars can be adjusted accordingly to best suit the rider's height. However, this offers relatively limited adjustment of the bicycle for the child and the bicycles purchased at this stage of their development seldom last for more than two years before the child has outgrown the bicycle.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a bicycle for a child that overcomes at least some of these problems and offers a useful choice to the consumer. In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide a bicycle for a child that will be able to “grow” with the child during this stage of the child's rapid physical development and that will enable the child to learn how to ride a bicycle in a preferred manner without necessitating the purchase of numerous disparate bicycles.